A day after learning that Myles Davis will be ineligible for this upcoming season, its time to look at what the impact will be. The loss of Davis leaves just 3 scholarship guards on Xavier's roster. Xavier will look to Semaj Christon, Dee Davis, and Brad Radford to run the show. It will be interesting to see how they keep these three players fresh. In theory, there are two guard positions equaling 80 minutes of playing time, leaving each player with about 27 minutes on the court. Of course Xavier will not look to keep all three of these players minutes the same but after looking at what Xavier has at the guard position, I don't think under any circumstance Chris Mack wanted to see these kinds of minutes being expected from any of these players, except possibly Davis.
Davis is the only experienced point guard in the bunch, but is just a Sophomore. He grew a lot last season and seemed to hit his stride the second half of the season and even a bit of range with his shot. He will need to be the leader of this bunch.
Semaj Christon is the most talented of the guards by far, yet I don't think anyone would want to have this amount of weight put on his shoulders during his freshmen season. He will need to step up and be a leader on this team on the court. Also, with the lack of scorers on this team, he will need to score buckets in bunches.
Brad Redford is the veteran of the bunch. There is no doubt his range and ability to shoot from the perimeter is a great asset, but because of the increased role he will now have to play, defense will be the area he needs to focus. Although he is a liability on that end of the court, Xavier has no choice anymore, Redford is going to have to play substantial minutes now that Myles Davis is out of the mix and they need him to hold his own ton the defensive side of the court. The other issue with Redford is, he cannot get beat on the defensive end of the court and pick up fouls. With the lack of depth at the guard position, none of these players can afford foul trouble.
A bleak outlook for Xavier got even more bleak yesterday with the Myles Davis news but it does provide a great opportunity for Xavier's remaining guards. The season may be a little tough at times to watch but Semaj and Dee Davis will get an incredible amount of experience that should work in Xavier's favor over the next couple of seasons. For Redford, he went from being a role player, splitting minutes with Myles Davis, to seeing a lot of minutes and huge opportunity to put his stamp on this team during his senior season.
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